Introduction
Bridging past and future research
Past project (PhD): How men serving life sentences for murder respond morally to conviction and punishment (Jarman 2024)
- 48 interviews across two English prisons (2019-2020)
- 26 participants approaching or past tariff dates
- Focus on institutional demands for risk reduction
Today’s focus: Participants’ experiences of parole decision-making
Explain the bridging purpose - this is preliminary analysis while developing new research.
Defining ‘parole decision-making’
I’m using the term broadly, to encompass:
- Not just oral hearings
- The wider apparatus of sentence planning
- Risk assessment processes
- Dossier compilation
- How participants themselves saw it: a process, not an event
Participants didn’t always differentiate clearly between Prison Service and Parole Board roles.
Research context and motivation
- Parole an under-researched topic (Sparks 2020), though shifting
- Observational research often focused on hearings themselves (Dagan 2024; Hawkins 1983; Padfield 2017; Padfield & Liebling 2000; Peplow & Phillips 2024; Shammas 2019)
- Consistent finding: pre-hearing stages strongly shape the outcome (Bradford & Cowell 2012; Dyke et al. 2020; Finnis 2017; Hood & Shute 2000; Padfield 2017; Power 2018)
- Gap: Pre-hearing stages are under-explored
We know that prison staff work shapes decisions, but not much about how they:
- Interpret evidence
- Understand risk
- Prioritise competing considerations
We don’t know much about decisions made ‘on the papers’ (though see Power 2018)
- These represent ∽45% of concluded cases (The Parole Board 2024)
Three themes from 26 interviews:
- Temporal disruption
- Procedural expectations
- Performativity
Discussion of how these shape forthcoming work
Empirical themes
Temporal disruption: the parole process and lived time
- Biographically insignificant spells of monotony
- ‘Dead’ or ‘nothing’ time
- ‘Stagnation’
- Limited behavioural feedback
- Biography comes ‘unstuck’:
- Sediments of the past are stirred up
- The future becomes realer, more appealing, and just beyond reach
- Parole cycles generate urgency
- Casework generates delays
He told me: “We forgot you. You’ve gone through the system and you’ve been forgotten. That’s why your report wasn’t written”.— Billy
[I hate how] they are so blasé about it […] I’ve done so much […] to better myself, to get myself in a good position. [OMU staff] turn around and say to me, “Oh, well, I don’t really know what you’ve been up to.”
— Ebo
[I just want to] get it over and done with because […] it is late by 13 months. I just want to know […] All this time [since the last assessment] is limbo.
— Tom
I’m going to get to the stage where [I say] ‘That’s YOUR parole board. I’m not even engaging. Just leave me alone.’ […] They keep dangling the carrot, and just as I get to the carrot, they hit me with a fucking stick.— Fred
Procedural expectations: risk assessment vs. moral evaluation
- Descriptions of personal change were perceived as necessary
- Terminologies varied: risk-focused vs. holistic
- Late-stage prisoners described change in terms of character (Sennett 1998):
- Reflective
- Relating to the long-term
- Concerning the emotional priority given to different considerations
I’ve got my empathy back. I mean, [now] I can stop and help somebody, if they need help, not just sort of walk off and say, ‘That’s not my problem, that’s not my business.’ It IS my business.— Daniel
I didn’t know then that I could be kind to people, you know?— Jeff
I mean, my beliefs are still the same. I haven’t changed my beliefs. The only thing I will not do in the future is inflict my beliefs on somebody else— Grant
They were so intent on the fact that [I’ve been prescribed codeine] for pain […] They spent maybe even half an hour talking about it, which is [more than] they talked about the crime I committed.— Frank
What the Parole Board did say, was, we don’t focus on the positives, because they’re a given. We’re here to focus on the negatives.— Frank
I understand the reasons why […] Their job is to protect the public […] If I got into a relationship, of course there’s a bloody increased risk. But it’s not what I want.— Grant
What I’ve gained [in prison] is healing from trauma. I understand that there is that risk. But I still believe that everybody should be treated as an individual because each individual case is completely different.— Nicholas
Performativity: self-presentation and psychological integrity
- Parole processes require a performance, BUT performances can be:
- convincing/unconvincing
- fluent/awkward
- truthful/deceptive
- authentic/manipulative
- plausible/fanciful
- Whether they succeed depends partly on the audience
90% of us in this jail tell [parole boards] what they want to know.— Taylor
Performative styles:
- Defensive minimalism: “yes, sir, no, sir, three bags full, sir” (Alf)
- Calculated compliance: engage “because I had to”, self-disclosure on a “need-to-know basis” (Nixon)
- Full disclosure: “you just lay your soul bare” (Daniel) but risk your own wellbeing
- Narrative negotiation: carving out space for personal narratives
‘Taking responsibility’—but not for the murder
[I told them] I’m not proud of the way I was […] In relation to the affairs. I can openly that. I said, ‘No-one deserves that, I wouldn’t want that for my daughters.’ It’s a matter then of just having empathy to the […] hurt and the pain you’ve caused.— Ian
When performance fails to please the audience…
Chris was asked about the possibility of encountering his co-defendant after release. Pressed repeatedly, he eventually snapped.
‘What if you meet him?’ […] ‘What if you can’t avoid him?’ […] ‘What if he follows you?’ […] ‘What if he won’t go away?’ […] ‘What if the police don’t come?’ ‘Well then, I’ll fucking kill him!’ It took half an hour, that did. That’s the answer he wanted.— Chris
It’s like having a pair of scales, yeah? And they’ve got a big weight already fucking tilting the scales on one side that says ‘public protection’.— Fred
It’s the hope that kills you.— Derek
Future directions?
The proposed research
- Examine the decision as a socially situated sentencing process (see Tata 2020) involving many mutually constraining contributors
- Not the product of a single discretionary hearing
- Sample recent cases from specific prison sites
- Code a dataset from Parole Board documents (adapting methodology in Dyke 2022)
- Decision letters
- Case management directions
- Dossier contents summaries
- Analyse associations among data points and outcomes
- Working title: “An ethnography of the parole dossier”
- Sample 25-30 cases at the same sites and follow them longitudinally & in depth
- Try to triangulate:
- Staff and prisoner interviews
- Observations
- Document analysis
- Ethics clearance received
- Applications submitted to Parole Board and HMPPS
- Collisions with reality ongoing!
- Early findings in 2026 🤞🤞🤞
I’d love to hear your feedback, and thoughts about where this might/could/should lead!
Thank you - open for questions and discussion. Particularly interested in resonances with panel colleagues’ work and broader questions about institutional decision-making.